Light Pollution

Under Construction

As you have seen on the previous pages, as the light pollution in the atmosphere gets larger, our ability to see stars and galaxies grows smaller. While that may not seem like such a big problem to amateur astronomers and just star gazers, to professional astronomers this is a big issue. We will look at three places from my animation, a big bright star, a smaller, dimmer star, and part of the arm from the galaxy, to show just how big of an impact light pollution can have on astronomical data. (add on as we see fit, possibly go in to what the star data is used for, how fluxes in light pollution could make us think there are other planets in a system when there isn't, or something like that.)

 


By Shannon Smith and Andy Layden -- Physics & Astronomy Dept at BGSU -- Copyright 2008.